Design and Reusability of Learning Objects in
an Academic Context: A New Economy of Education? The
text of my talk today in Milan (actually much more, because
I had less time than I had words, though with judicious
pacing it all worked out OK). This paper combines bits you
may have seen already - a survey of availble types of
learning object repositories, an outrline of the problems
and issues, an overview of the major design principles, and
then a description of a distributed learning object
repository network. This paper is in draft form, which
means I reserve the right to modify it or abandon it, as
appropriate. Nonetheless, it is a synthesis of many of the
ideas I've had over the last year and so has the makings of
a major paper. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, November
12, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

What's Info Got to Do With It? A classic
example of what Gilbert Ryle called a category error. The
author writes, "I'm on the Web all day. Do you know how
much time I spend dealing with information? On a good day,
none. I'm reading, writing, talking with people I know and
am getting to know, checking my e-mail, avoiding work.
Information is the last thing on my mind." That's like
somebody saying, "I see all these buildings and people, but
where is the university in all this?" All of these
interactions online involve the exchange of information.
Otherwise they would be pointless drones of noise. By
David Weinberger, Darwin Magazine, November 6, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Ontology Building: A Survey of Editing
Tools This article doesn't really provide a grid-based
comparison, but offers a useful overview of the topic,
including descriptions of types of ontologies and potential
applications. These tools help build documents as described
by the W3C (listed below). By Michael Denny, XML.Com,
November 6, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

1037091106 Released last week, the web
ontology language (OWL) is "a language for defining Web
ontologies and their associated knowledge bases. Ontology
is a term borrowed from philosophy that refers to the
science of describing the kinds of entities in the world
and how they are related. In OWL, an ontology is a set of
definitions of classes and properties, and constraints on
the way those classes and properties can be employed."
Ontologies have been around for a while and this document
is the latest update on the concept. Ontologies will be
useful in defining types or classifications of learning
objects, and their use is anticipated in such documents as
IEEE-LOM and IMS. By Michael K. Smith, et.al., W3C,
November 4, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Elearning Adoption & Marketing Another
fine article from George Siemen's 'course with no content,'
this article looks at the question of how to get people to
take your online course. The article considers Jay Cross's
work on the subject and looks at wants and needs from both
employer and learner perspectives as well as adoption in a
university context. What emerges is that adoption is about
more than just getting people to take your course, and it's
about more than just technology, it's about offering people
something they need. By George Siemens, elearnspace,
November 11, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]